Fox News has confirmed that Cohen secretly recorded a 2016 conversation in which then-candidate Trump discussed a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

The FBI obtained the recording — which was made two months before the 2016 election — during a raid on Cohen’s office earlier this year. The Justice Department is investigating Cohen’s involvement in paying women to bury embarrassing news stories about Trump ahead of the election.

Stirewalt said he believes Cohen has now fired a “pretty serious shot across the bow” toward the Oval Office to give him a pardon or money for his defense, otherwise he will turn over evidence.

“If we’re applying Occam’s Razor on the leak … we would say who benefits from it? And the ‘who benefits’ is Michael Cohen,” he added.

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Joe Bloggs

Used to be the Republicans stood for democracy and American values. They supported the post-WW2 liberal international order: institutions and alliances founded on the idea that nations have obligations to each other, designed in principle, if not always in practice, to defend democratic ideals: transparent and accountable government, free trade, representative government, due process of law, universal suffrage…

Not any more. These days the republicans put self-interest ahead of their moral responsibilities.